step three.10 Concentrate on the Environment – Acid Precipitation
Arrhenius acids have a nomenclature system that is a little more complex, since their structures can include both binary compounds as well as polyatomic anions. In naming acids from binary compounds, the prefix ‘hydro-‘ is used to represent the cation H+, and the suffix ‘-ic’ acid is used to indicate that it is an acidic form. The element name of the anion can be used directly, as is the case for H2S known as hydrosulfuric acid, or more commonly, the anion is modified by dropping the ‘-ine’, ‘-ous’ or ‘-ogen’ ending before replacing with the suffix ‘-ic acid’, as is the case for HCl which is known as hydrochloric acid, H3P which is known as hydrophosphoric acid and H3N which is known as hydronitric acid.
If an acid contains a polyatomic ion, no leading prefix is used to indicate the H+ cation. This is implied within the name. For polyatomic anions ending with the suffix ‘-ate’, the acid is named as the [anion name] + the ‘-ic acid’ suffix. For example, when the sulfate ion (SOcuatro 2- ) is complexed with H + as the cation, the overall formula will be H2SO4 and the resulting acid will be named sulfuric acid. Dropping the prefix distinguishes polyatomic acids from the binary acids, in this case sulfuric acid (H2SO4) is distinguished from hydrosulfuric acid (H2S). If a polyatomic anion has the ‘-ite’ ending, the acid name will be written as the [anion name] + the ‘-ous acid’ suffix.